


Nausea

by stuffandnonsense



Series: Missing Scenes [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Relationships, Character Study, Episode: s03e08 Lovers Walk, Gen, Mourning the end of a relationship, Sympathetic Angel, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffandnonsense/pseuds/stuffandnonsense
Summary: It used to be that, whenever Angel was alone and thinking about Buffy, he’d readSonnets from the Portuguese. But ever since they’d nearly kissed again he hadn’t dared think those thoughts, let alone read them.He knew full well that reading Sartre instead was a terrible idea, but he was doing it anyway.My Buffyverse Bingo submission for the prompt ‘Hot Cocoa’. Angel’s perspective onLovers Walk.
Series: Missing Scenes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/247567
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7
Collections: Buffyverse Bingo





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes at the top of each chapter are from Jean-Paul Sartre's _La Nausée_ (Nausea), which is a book about how unbearably awful it is to be alive, and which Spike saw Angel reading when he spied on him in an early scene of _Lovers Walk_. Translations from the French are mine.

_Il y a même un moment, tout au début [de se mettre_ _à_ _aimer quelqu’un], où il faut sauter par-dessus un précipice. […] Je sais que je ne sauterai plus jamais._

There is this moment, when you first start to fall in love with someone, where you have to jump off a cliff … I know I’ll never jump again.

Angel can’t bear telling Buffy things she won’t want to hear. But he decided a long time ago never to lie. Omit, yes: he’s obfuscated the truth worse than the slimiest used car salesman. But until today, he’s never outright lied.

The obvious one was asking where she wanted to go to college, making believe she had a choice. But then he’d given a further opinion ‘as a friend’. Subtler, sure, but no less a lie.

He is not her friend.

If he was, it wouldn’t hurt so much knowing she’s still lying to her mother about seeing him. Platonically.

Angel knows her lies aren’t personal: Buffy has never told the truth about what really matters to the people she loves the most. Plus, her mother is terrified of him.

No. He doesn’t deserve that. The truth is that he terrified – _terrifies_ – her mother.

Even when Joyce thought he was just some college kid tutoring Buffy, she’d seen his true nature. Enough that she heard the threat when he swore both he and Buffy would die without each other.

The other girls’ mothers always melted: Angelus was so sweet – endearing, even – when he made declarations like that.

Not Joyce Summers.

When Buffy first brought him back – he’d like to believe by the power of her love, but that’s a harder sell every day – Angel depended on her for everything. It was shockingly easy, trusting his entire existence to her. He became weightless.

Now that he’s responsible for himself again, his sins hang too heavy around his neck. He no longer remembers how to carry them.

Angel knows he defiles her every time they touch. Her eyes still reach out to him – binding him to her, albeit at arm’s length. So he stays. For her.

Every moment he hates himself more.


	2. Chapter 2

_Si j’existe, c’est parce que j’ai horreur d’exister._

If I exist, it’s because I hate existing.

Once, Angel wanted Joyce to have him over for dinner and a grilling. Maybe even a shovel talk. He wouldn’t have eaten anything, and it would’ve been even more awkward than every other time he’s tried to insert himself into Buffy’s non-Slayer life.

She loses out on so much because of her calling. He used to try to be the boyfriend she needed, even though it’s a goal he could never reach. Or even knew how to.

He wanted her to be happy more than anything else. It still catches him off-guard, that he is capable of feeling that way.

No matter how cruel his traitorous mocking, Joyce’s trust in Spike shines like a beacon, illuminating with startling clarity the used mugs on the table and the chocolatey pan in the sink.

Joyce has only ever seen Angel – seen _Angelus_ – calm and respectful. The last time she saw Spike, she brained him with an axe. How did she get from there to making hot cocoa?

Before, some-when, Buffy trusted Spike. Must have, for Joyce to accept him so easily. To listen. (Angel recognises the telltale redness in his eyes that isn’t from drinking.) To let him cry on her shoulder.

Angel doesn’t know what he wants from Joyce anymore.

He hurt Buffy so badly for so long. And then worse, again, when she sent him, “innocent”, into hell. Neither one of them should ever forgive him.

Buffy still cares. He thinks. Hopes. He’s almost sure.

He can’t tell whether that’s awful or wonderful yet. He still finds it too strange and unreal. Like if he ever shuts his eyes, he’ll wake up somewhere else. Someone else.

On his worst days, he wishes Joyce would kill him. She is strong enough he knows she’d never regret it.

Buffy would be free.


	3. Chapter 3

_Toute notre histoire est assez belle. […] je ferme les yeux et j’essaie de m’imaginer que je vis encore dedans._

Our history is so beautiful … I close my eyes and try to imagine I still live in it.

Spike is family because Dru sired him, but Angel can’t remember anything else she chose for herself (not for Angelus). He’s never understood what made her want _him_. It chafes.

“You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood … blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it.”

Angel has never liked Spike.

Angel likes Spike even less trapped under a door, unable to escape without help.

Then it turns out it’s not just Joyce and past-Buffy who trust(ed) Spike, but Angel, too. Why did he believe Spike’s denial that Buffy’s friends were at the factory? He _knows_ Spike, drunk and sober, and he’s always been that kind of lazy. Always smiled and laughed and lied as easy as anything to get what he wants. Like Angelus taught him.

Buffy saw straight through that. Through him. She would’ve acted on it, too, if she hadn’t got distracted.

No.

If Angel hadn’t distracted her. 

He won’t lie. Not a second time, not about this. So when she asks him – eyes begging – to tell her he doesn’t love her, just so she can stay, he is silent.

She leaves.

Just as he is accepting he still needs her – still too weak to protect himself from what he once dreamed of protecting _her_ from – she’s finally realised how little she needs him. If he’s lucky, she realises how little she’s ever needed him. How much better off she is without his tainted affection.

Angel knows he will never taste Joyce’s hot cocoa. He doesn’t deserve it.


End file.
